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To the naked eye, the organism Physarum polycephalum – commonly referred to as ‘slime mould’ – might seem an unexceptional creature, despite its bright-yellow glow, as its acellular existence is dedicated to tracking nutrients at a speed of 1mm per hour. But this protist’s surprising computational cunning becomes apparent when viewed in time-lapse, revealing a life form that seems to possess intelligence despite lacking a nervous system. Between 2009 and 2018, the UK artist and researcher Heather Barnett conducted a series of clever experiments in which she probed slime moulds’ capacities for forming complex tube networks and adjusting to obstacles. For this short film, Aeon Video compiled Barnett’s ‘creative collaborations’ with P polycephalum into a montage that builds in complexity, emphasising the slime moulds’ surprisingly sophisticated capacities for problem-solving.
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Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
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Biotechnology
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Physics
Imagining spacetime as a visible grid is an extraordinary journey into the unseen
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War and peace
A century later, can poetry help us make sense of the First World War’s horrors?
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Language and linguistics
The little Peruvian guide to public speaking that conjures up a grandiose world
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Engineering
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Life stages
What Michelangelo’s late-in-life works reveal about his genius – and his humanness
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Biography and memoir
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Stories and literature
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